Sentence of Marriage (12 page)

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. ‘You told me you’d try not to upset your ma, and now see the state you’ve got her in. She’s just about made herself ill.’

‘She made me angry,’ Amy said, trying to defend herself despite knowing she was wasting her time. ‘She was rude to Miss Evans, and she said… she wouldn’t… she doesn’t think it’s worth anything to be a teacher, even though it’s what I want…’ She trailed away feebly, knowing she had not put up much of a justification for her transgression.

Her father looked at her sternly. ‘Amy, I’ve already said you can’t do that any more, and I expect you to obey me. All your ma did was back up what I’d said—that’s no excuse for you to upset her. I expected better of you.’

Amy hung her head. ‘I’m sorry, Pa.’

‘It’s your ma you’ll have to say you’re sorry to, not me. It’s not good for her to get that upset, especially in her condition.’

Amy looked up at him in bewilderment for a moment, then in wide-eyed surprise. ‘Condition?’ she repeated stupidly. ‘You mean she’s going to—’

‘Yes, she is, and there’s no need for you to look so shocked over it, either. I’m not as old as all that, you know. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss that with you,’ he said, clearly embarrassed. ‘Don’t tell her I said anything about it.

‘You’ve never given me trouble before,’ he went on, ‘but you’ve gone too far over this. Your ma says you need correcting. I’d rather she did it herself—’

‘She’s not my mother!’ Amy interrupted, furious at the thought that Susannah might dare to touch her.

‘Amy!’ Jack shouted, sounding more angry than she had ever heard him. ‘She stands in the place of a mother to you, and she has the right to expect obedience, and to correct you if she doesn’t get it. But she doesn’t want to punish you herself, and I’m not going to make her. She’s upset enough without that.

‘So I have to do it,’ he finished sombrely. ‘I’ve never laid a hand on you—I don’t hold with men hitting women as a rule. But I
have
to,’ he repeated, pulling his right hand from behind his back. With a sinking feeling, Amy recognised the heavy leather strap. Her grandmother had not used it on her since she was ten.

She stood up from the bed and stretched her right arm out straight in front of her with the hand palm upwards, looking her father straight in the eye as she did so. Remembering punishments from school, she made sure her palm was quite flat, so that the blow would have the maximum effect.

Jack looked from her hand to her face, then looked at the wall.

‘I don’t think it was your
hand
she had in mind, girl.’

Amy looked at him in alarm, and sat down again on the bed very quickly. ‘No, Pa.’ She shook her head to emphasise her words. Being punished by her grandmother had been completely different; the idea of exposing her buttocks to a
man
, even her father, was too horrible to contemplate.

Her father regarded her in silence, then his shoulders slumped a little.

‘No, you’re right. I can’t do it. All right, let’s have your hand then.’

She stood up and offered her hand as before. To her surprise, Jack took her hand and pressed the palm so that it made a hollow. Didn’t he know that meant the strap would make a lot of noise but wouldn’t hurt quite as much? All the children she had gone to school with seemed aware of that; unfortunately so was Miss Evans, so Amy had given up trying that trick early on. But if her father wanted to do it that way she would not argue.

Whack! There was a loud noise, but it only hurt a little. Yes, she could bear that in silence. Amy gritted her teeth and fought down the urge to cry out.

‘Make a noise, for God’s sake!’ Jack said in a hoarse whisper. ‘She’ll be listening!’

After that Amy yelled obligingly at each stroke, wondering if she was overdoing it. Her father did not seem to think so.

After a dozen strokes Jack lowered his arm to his side, and Amy dropped her own arm, rubbing the tender palm. Her father said nothing, but watched her steadily for several moments until she dropped her gaze, unable to endure what she saw in his face.

‘Don’t ever make me do that again, Amy.’ He turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door after him.

Amy collapsed onto the bed and wept bitterly. Not from the pain in her hand, which was nothing; but from the look she had seen in her father’s eyes: a look compounded of hurt and disappointment and bewilderment. The knowledge that she was the cause of that look was almost too much to bear.

When she had cried herself out she rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what to do. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to leave her room, and she was in enough trouble without making it worse. She could hear Jack’s and Susannah’s voices faintly, but she couldn’t make out any words, or even tell whether the voices were angry.

The door opened and her father and stepmother came in together. Amy sat up, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes to clear the leftover tears. She made sure her right palm, with its telltale redness, was hidden in her lap. Susannah looked calmer, but Jack had his arm protectively around her shoulders; the sight made Amy angry, though she knew she had no right to be.

‘Amy has something to say to you,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t you, Amy?’ He looked pointedly at his daughter. She stood up and looked at the floor.

‘I’m sorry I upset you.’

‘That’s not enough, Amy,’ said Jack. Amy shot a glance at him, then looked back at the floor and tried again.

‘I’m sorry I was rude to you, and I’m sorry I left you to do the work.’ She looked at her father to see if this apology met with his approval. To her relief, he gave a slight nod.

‘So you should be,’ Susannah said sharply. She was clearly elated at winning the trial of strength, and was going to push her success to the limit. ‘You can spend some time thinking about how you should behave in future—you’ll have the chance to do that this evening. You’re to stay in your room until tomorrow morning, and there’ll be no dinner for you, either.’

‘Susannah, that’s a bit hard,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve already punished her.’

Susannah turned on him with her eyes flashing, and pushed his arm from her shoulder. ‘You
said
I could punish her.’

‘Yes, I did. But you didn’t want to, and you made… I did it instead. It seems a bit rough, that’s all,’ he finished feebly.

‘She has to do what
I
say, not just you,’ Susannah flung at him. ‘Are you going to take her part against me?’

Amy looked from one to the other, wondering if they had forgotten she was there. Jack gave her a helpless glance.

‘No, I won’t take her part. You do whatever you think is right.’

‘I will,’ Susannah said triumphantly. ‘You heard what I said, Amy, I don’t want to see you until tomorrow.’

I don’t want to see you at all
. But Amy schooled her expression into what she hoped looked like submissiveness and stood with downcast eyes.

‘I don’t suppose you feel able to sit on a hard chair at the moment, anyway,’ Susannah said as a malicious parting thrust before sweeping out of the room, skirts rustling. Amy carefully avoided meeting her father’s eye as Jack followed.

She’ll have to do everything by herself tonight
, Amy thought with some satisfaction.
And I don’t care about missing dinner.
She started to reach for her sewing, then abruptly decided against it. Instead she went to her bookshelf and let her finger run along the titles before she selected
Villette
. She snuggled herself comfortably among the pillows and settled in for a long, self-indulgent evening. If she was as bad as all that, she might as well be lazy too.

When the smell of roast meat seeped under the door, her stomach grumbled noisily. The hunger pangs became more insistent as the evening wore on, and Amy began to wish she had eaten a few scraps while baking that afternoon. Thinking about
that
only made it worse. She could see those rows of biscuits looking golden brown and tempting. The faint voices she could hear from the parlour were distracting, too. She wondered if John and Harry had been told why she wasn’t there, and if they were all talking about her.

She shut the book in disgust; it was getting too dark to read, anyway, and she didn’t have anything to light her lamp with. But after she had undressed and climbed under the covers it seemed a very long time before she drifted off into a restless sleep, and dreamed of roast mutton.

February – April 1882

Susannah was not at the breakfast table next morning when Amy served the meal to her father and brothers. She and Jack avoided each others’ eyes, and Amy ate in silence; she thought her father and brothers were quieter than usual, too.

Jack ate quickly and left the house as soon as he had finished his meal, but John and Harry seemed to be dawdling over theirs. Her brothers looked at one another, then at Amy.

‘You went to bed early last night,’ said John.

‘Yes,’ Amy said, in a tone meant to discourage further comments.

But Harry would not be put off. ‘Did you get a hiding?’ he burst out.

‘Yes, I did.’ Amy’s hand ached at the memory, and she pressed it against her side.

‘What for?’ asked John.

‘For annoying
her
.’

‘Just for that?’ Harry said in amazement. ‘She annoys me every day, and I’ve never seen her get a hiding. That’s not fair on you—she’s always nagging at you.’

‘Gee, that’s a bit rough, Amy.’ John looked concerned. Their sympathy made Amy want to cry, and she rose from the table to hide her emotion.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, making herself busy clearing their plates away.

‘Is that why you didn’t come out to have tea? Were you bawling?’ Harry wanted to know.

‘I wasn’t allowed to come out,’ Amy said, her back to them. ‘I had to go without my dinner so I could think about how wicked I am.’
Pa didn’t want her to do that—but he let her anyway
. ‘And you know what?’ She turned around to face them again. ‘It didn’t work.’

‘What didn’t work?’ Harry looked puzzled.

‘Shutting me up like that. I thought about it, all right. I said something I shouldn’t have—’

‘What?’ Harry asked with an eager expression.

‘Never you mind—I don’t want you repeating it and getting me in more trouble. But it was all true, and she shouldn’t have said what she did, and hitting me doesn’t change that.’

She stopped, seeing that they both looked mystified. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just rambling. I know what I’m talking about, even if I’m not making much sense.’

‘So she said something that annoyed you,’ John said slowly, struggling to follow her, ‘and you said something back, so you got a hiding for it, then you got sent to bed without any tea.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Huh!’ Harry said in disgust. ‘If she started it, why didn’t
she
get the hiding?’

‘Because Pa says she’s my mother and I’ve got to do what she says, and because he doesn’t want her to get upset.’

‘Mother! What a load of crap—she’s only a couple of years older than John. What I want to know is—’

‘Come on, Harry, let’s get moving,’ John interrupted. He made a small gesture of warning with his hand. Unlike Harry, who had his back to the door, John had seen the handle turning.

When Harry gave a glance over his shoulder and saw Susannah entering the room, he needed no further encouragement. ‘Mmm, better get going—see you later, Amy.’ He and John left the house with barely a glance at Susannah.

‘Did you have to eat your breakfast standing up, dear?’ Susannah asked. ‘What a shame. You’ll remember that lesson for a while, won’t you?’ If Susannah had been any more pleased with herself, Amy thought, she would have been purring.

‘Can I get you something to eat?’ Amy asked very meekly.

‘Just an egg, thank you—and some tea, of course.’ She lifted the lid of the teapot and looked inside, then wrinkled her nose. ‘Make a fresh pot, this looks rather stewed.’

‘Whatever you say, Susannah.’

‘Well, I must say that’s a better attitude from you—I shall have to tell your father you’re getting over your haughtiness.’

Amy said nothing as she cleared away the breakfast things. She went into the parlour to start cleaning that room as soon as she could, leaving Susannah still sitting at the table sipping her second cup of tea.

After she had beaten the rugs Amy decided to indulge herself for a while before it was time to make lunch. She took a slim volume from her little bookshelf and slipped quietly out of the house while Susannah was writing letters in her bedroom.

As she walked out of the garden to look for a quiet spot, Amy pondered whether she preferred a calm but vindictive Susannah to a near-hysterical one. Hysteria was very wearing, but at least she could feel a little sorry for Susannah when the woman was so obviously miserable. And she knew it must be hard for Susannah, coming to this dull place after living in Auckland. Amy wondered what it would be like to go to the dinner parties or outings to the theatre that Susannah talked of occasionally, with all the women in such lovely clothes and so many different people there that even if some of them were boring there must always be someone interesting to talk to.